Do trade law obligations constrain policy options for obesity prevention?

A range of regulatory measures have been proposed to address the growing problem of obesity and related health risks such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes. These include regulation of food advertising, particularly to children; more stringent food labelling requirements, including the addition of regulated or mandatory front-of-package labels; the use of taxes and subsidies to affect the price of foods; and regulation of food content, such as restrictions on trans fats, salt, saturated fat, or added sugars. Many of these policy proposals raise international trade law issues, since they may constitute technical barriers to trade or trade-distorting subsidies. Strong resistance from industry to some proposed measures and variation among national positions increase the risk of a trade dispute arising in this context. When choosing among policy options, decision makers should be aware their potential vulnerability to challenge as violations of international trade law obligations. This presentation will therefore review the legal rules and principles relevant to each of these regulatory interventions, assess which of them might be most vulnerable to a successful challenge, and suggest ways of minimizing this risk.